J and D's Travel Blog

Day 15: Last leg

jamie — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:30:15 +0000

Today is the last day of our road trip. After spending the evening in Gander with Dominique’s family, we will finally return to our home in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The drive will take approximately 3.5 hours, the map is below:

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It was a fantastic road trip, as was living in California for the past 2+ years. Nevertheless, it will be fantastic to get home!

Day 14: Back in Newfoundland!

jamie — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:30:08 +0000

After spending the night on the ferry, our day today will begin early in Port aux Basques on the southwest coast of Newfoundland. After getting off the ferry, we will drive approximately 7 hours to Gander, Newfoundland where we will spend the night visiting Dominique’s family.

Here is the driving route:

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Photos from Washington, D.C.

jamie — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:39:52 +0000

World War II Memorial. Each state and US territory are represented around the circle.

View of the Washington Monument (obelisk) from the WWII memorial.

Lincoln Memorial in the distance, looking from the WWII memorial.

The Atlantic end of the WWII memorial. The Pacific is represented 180 degrees around the circle.

Us outside the Lincoln Memorial and standing along the reflecting pool.

The (George) Washington Monument

View of the reflecting pool, gardens and the Washington Monument (obelisk) from the Lincoln Memorial

Abe Lincoln Statue - Amazing detail in the stone carving!

Us at the Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial Building

Beautiful autumn colours in the trees around the Lincoln Memorial

The White House - Rear Garden view. I think this may be the oval office on the top floor, but I am not sure.

Garden at the rear of the White House.

The front of the White House - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave at dusk. You can't see him in the picture, but there was a secret service officer standing on the front steps.

At the base of the Lincoln Memorial there was a very striking display of support for President-Elect Obama. Thousands of people around the world had joined together to create billboards offering congratulations and testimonials of hope for the USA and world under the new presidents’ leadership, and thousands more had signed the displays after being erected in Washington. It was quite a sight to see just how much hope Mr. Obama has given to so many people around the world.

One of the more amusing comments left by a visitor

Day 13: Heading for the Ferry

jamie — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:30:28 +0000

Today we have to drive from Moncton, New Brunswick, to North Sydney, Nova Scotia where we will catch an overnight ferry to Newfoundland. Today’s drive should be nice and easy, one of the shortest routes we’ve driven on the entire trip. In should only take about 5 hours of driving to get to the ferry, and we don’t need to be there until late tonight – the ferry leaves Nova Scotia at 11:30pm and takes anywhere from 6-8 hours to get to Newfoundland – so today should be a much more relaxed day. We will arrive on the island early tomorrow morning.

The driving route is as follows, note that I’ve included the ferry route as well, obviously we won’t be driving on the bottom of the ocean!

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Day 12: Bye bye USA, Canada: here we come!!

jamie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:30:46 +0000

Today will be a bittersweet day, as we leave the USA and cross the border back into Canada. It will be a busy day, as we have a few errands to run before leaving the US, we have to stop at both USA and Canada customs to deal with exporting our car from the USA and then importing it into Canada, not to mention we have at least 8 hours of driving besides. We will be driving from Portland, Maine to Moncton, New Brunswick where we will stop for the night to visit with friends. It will be great to be back in Canada, but we will surely miss the USA.

Here’s our route for today:

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D.C. to Portland, Maine

dominique — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:27:25 +0000

Today was a rather frantic day on the road passing and outskirting some very major cities. We drove out of Maryland and hit the I-95 north passing through several states. Our drive took us past Baltimore, Philidelphia, across the George Washington Bridge through New York and up past Hartford (sounds like an NHL lineup). The highways are busier here than any we have encountered since we left California. So far we have paid $27.05 in bridge fares and turnpike tolls at 11 or 12 pay booths!! The New Englanders are out to get all of our money!

There is not much to report to you all tonight aside from the few points mentioned here. We are safe and sound at the hotel now in Portland, Maine for the night. We will be crossing the border tomorrow with a destination of Dieppe, New Brunswick to visit with friends.

Day 11: Heading North

jamie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Today we are heading north for the Canadian border, in as direct a path as possible. We’re actually not sure where we will stop for the night, we had originally figured it would take another 2 nights in the USA before crossing the border, but are now thinking we may be able to cross Tuesday afternoon, depending on how well we do with the driving tomorrow. Our route tomorrow will take us through some heavy traffic areas, especially outside New York and the New Jersey turnpike. We’ll see how it goes!

Here is roughly the route we will follow to the border:

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Our day in Washington D.C.

dominique — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:30:57 +0000

Day ten brought us from the pretty, sleepy countryside of Virginia into the busy and beautiful capital – Washington D.C. Our drive into the city was not a long one as we stopped last night about 2.5 hours out. It did however take us an hour to find a parking place once we got there, but I’ve got to admit, it was worth the wait; D.C. is a beautiful city. The buildings are old and beautifully sculpted, they look as I like to put it, “like wedding cake” in that they are ornate and trimmed up like a fancy cake. We have noticed that that there are more and more buildings made out of brick and stone as we drive east, and D.C. is no exception.

Our parking spot was only two blocks from the White House and central to the Reflection Pool, Obelisk, Lincolin Memorial and WW II Memorial. We toured them all. Another observation that we have made is that the weather is getting cooler and cooler. It was a brisk, crisp, fall afternoon as we walked around and toured the sights. There are less leaves on the trees here than anywhere we have been yet, it is no trouble to tell that we are getting further and further north. It took us several hours to take in all of the monuments, fountains and sights.

Seeing the Lincoln Memorial was pretty impressive, especially since we could stand at Lincolin’s feet and look back across the length of the Reflecting Pool and see the Obelisk in the distance. Washington D.C. is very beautiful and everything that a capital should be. There are trees and planters and wrought iron fenses everywhere…and not a piece of garbage to be seen.

The White House is very well guarded, with fences, secret service guys (including one standing at the front door and one on the roof) police (on foot, bikes, horses and cars) and plenty of measures that we could not see. It isÂ set on immaculate lawns and was smaller than I thought it would be. We learned from a sign that the White House has been the home of all of the presidents except for George Washington, which makes it well over 300 years old. You cannot help but feel the history here and again are so glad that we chose such an awesome city to visit on our way home.

Day 10: Destination Washington, D.C.

jamie — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Today we are heading to Washington, D.C. for what is likely to be our last significant sightseeing stop before we cross over the border back into Canada. Our stop in Harrisonburg, Virginia last night put us only 2.5 hours outside Washington, D.C. so we hope to make it into the city before lunch and spend the afternoon seeing a few of the major sights. It should be an interesting day seeing the nation’s capital city.

Here is our driving route for today:

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A Beautiful Drive: Tennessee to Virginia (Day 9)

jamie — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:56:11 +0000

We’re safe and sound in Virginia after driving just over 550 miles today. We were both feeling great today after our day of rest in Nashville and made it a little farther than originally planned, stopping for the night in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The scenery today driving through Tennessee and Virginia was beautiful, breathtaking even. Right now, autumn is in full swing in the Tennessee hills and the trees are every shade of yellow, red and orange. The colours are even more striking than we are used to seeing in Canada, as here there are very few evergreen trees – nearly every tree has changed colour for the season. As we drove along, the leaves were steadily falling from the trees and drifting into the highway creating whirlwind leaf effects, not unlike driving through a snowstorm except much more colourful! As we moved further north, we passed many small farm towns, which were quite beautiful in their rustic charm.

Here are a few photos taken on our drive Northeast today, I hope they help you appreciate the beautiful scenery: